Campus Celeb: Danielle Curtis

For this week’s Celeb we kept it close to home– meet Danielle Curtis, co-founder of HCXU! If you haven’t seen her around campus in a while, it’s because she’s taking this semester off to intern at a literary agency in Manhattan! We caught up with Danielle to ask about the founding of HCXU and what the “real world” is really like.

Campus Celeb: Danielle Curtis 

Graduation Year: 2016

Major: English

Minors: Media Studies, Writing  

If you were a type of cookie, what would you be?

Probably chocolate chip. Classic, but yeah, kind of basic. 

Something everyone should know about you:

I think my dogs are God’s gift to humankind, and I will obnoxiously show you photos of them until you agree with me.

(Auggie gets a little grumpy about pictures…)

(… but Wixi would be a selfie queen if she had opposable thumbs.)

What made you want to apply to start a Xavier chapter of Her Campus, and what did you expect to get out of it?

I started seeing my friends from other schools post HC articles about their colleges, so I checked out Her Campus to see if Xavier had a chapter. When I saw that we didn’t, I was dissapointed at first– I wanted to read fun articles about my school and classmates! But then I realized other people would probably feel the same way, so I looked into starting our own chapter. I knew that it would be a great opportunity for me and other students interested in journalism, PR, editing, photography, or blogging to get some real world experience. 

What was the first year of HCXU like? Were there any unexpected challenges or surprises?  

We got off to a bit of a shaky start last year– it’s hard to recruit members without being an official Xavier club, and we felt like we were drowning in all the articles we had to write. So we applied for club status– and got denied! We were shocked. When we got that news, we were worried that HCXU would die before it had even begun. But we kept trudging along, and really started building up our social media presence. This year, we were allowed to set up a table at club day and recruited a ton of new members! I’m sad that I’m not at Xavier to witness it in person, but I love reading all the fantastic articles coming in and can’t wait to meet the new team. 

Why do you think Her Campus is important to have on campus? Why is it important to you?

The Pope has a Twitter, and Buzzfeed is becoming a fairly reliable breaking news source. It’s clear that social media and blogging are SO important in today’s media climate. For people who want to pursue those fields after graduation, having a personal blog is a great start but won’t really set you apart to a potential employer. But with HCXU, you’re part of a team that delivers fresh content every week to a targeted audience. You’re building a portfolio, developing your voice and writing style, and learning about PR and promotion. And you’re providing a service to the Xavier community! What more could you ask for?  

You decided to take a semester off of college to go to an internship in New York City. How has it been living in the Big Apple by yourself and going to work every day like you will be post-grad? 

So far it’s been more of a Liz Lemon experience than a Taylor Swift experience. I haven’t witnessed a “kaleidoscope of loud heart beats under coats” but I have seen a homeless guy pee into a traffic cone and then immediately go back to pushing around a live rabbit in a baby stroller. But even with all its quirks, the city still manages to be pretty enchanting. And I feel like this opportunity has given me a little preview what life after college will be like. SPOILER ALERT: you will miss those random three hour breaks between classes in the middle of the day. I feel like I’m getting behind on my Netflix binge-watching. 

What is one thing you didn’t think of or expect would happen when you took a semester off?

I knew I’d miss my friends and the college atmosphere of Xavier, but I didn’t except to miss the actual educational aspect of college so much! I can’t wait to come back and sit in a classroom and LEARN. 

Any words of wisdom for people that are thinking about taking a semester off?

If you have the room in your schedule and a semester off won’t set you back too much, do it! I was going to graduate a semester early but decided to NOT do that, so my “gap semester” fit perfectly into my schedule. If you’re looking for some wiggle room with credits, try to make classes double-count (I did this a ton and felt like I was cheating the system). Aim for classes that fulfill two core requirements at once, or will work with both your major and your minor at the same time. You may end up taking some weird classes because of it, (I got diversity and history credits fulfilled by “Gender and Sexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome”) but who doesn’t like learning about new things?

Would you recommend that people take the semester off if they have a good internship opportunity? What have you learned from this experience?

Absolutely. Even if it doesn’t seem like internships are readily available in the field you want to pursue, you can probably make one happen for yourself. After all, you’re offering to work for a company for free– what have they got to lose by taking you on? Even so, I sent out dozens and dozens of resumes, and only got a few responses. To lock the internship I really wanted  down, I took a bus from DC to New York and back in one day for an interview (I spent something like 10 hours on a bus for only 45 minutes in the city). A friend of mine cold-called major fashion houses until one offered her a spot, and a year later she was behind the scenes at New York Fashion Week. So if you really want something, now’s the time to go after it. You’ve got nothing to lose! 

• her campus
• new york city